Demon King Nobunaga

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Um, does anyone know the term 'sarcasm'? I was just joking about that dairokuten-maō thing!

"Worship me. Die for your crime of defying the House of One Hundred Demons, and repent in the afterlife. There are none before me, and will be none after me. I am the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, Oda Nobunaga!" [Dramatic Cape Flourish]

According to the Jesuit Father Luís Fróis,Oda Nobunaga called himself "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven" (dairokuten-maō), a title properly belonging to Māra, the Buddhist counterpart of Satan (though portrayed in mythology as a Noble Demon). While Nobunaga was most likely being sarcastic, and in any case he's not the only daimyō of the Sengoku Jidai whose ruthlessness has inspired a Historical Villain Upgrade, many popular depictions of Nobunaga literally demonize him, or at least give him supernatural powers.

The biggest inspiration of this usually comes from one of Nobunaga's biggest Shoot the Dog (or most commonly believed as a kick) moment: The burning of Mt. Hiei, taking out the Buddhist Warrior Monks of Ikko-Ikki and leaving none alive, including women and children. Whoever has the higher moral ground was unclear at that point (whether Nobunaga was just being callous, or the monks themselves were really disruptive and just adding on chaos in Japan that needs to be quelled no matter what, even if they use religion as a way to excuse their behavior), but considering Buddhism eventually recovers and once again becomes one of the major religions in Japan, Nobunaga's actions towards those Buddhists were not going to win him some fans from the future Buddhist storytellers, so they tend to use his previous sarcasm and make it a literal statement.

Examples:

In Black Lion, Nobunaga is actually possessed by alien invaders who equip his armies with high-tech armaments so he can conquer Japan as a beachhead (probably; the backstory isn't covered much).

In Samurai Deeper Kyo, Nobunaga was Japan's fiercest warlord who has a massive hate on for the main character. True to his nickname, his powers all revolve around Grim Reaper based attacks. Shou Hayami voices him here.

In Wrath of the Ninja, Nobunaga appears to be the chief antagonist for the 3 heroes, conquering Japan with demonic help and seeking to be transformed into a demon himself. This time, however, there's a Man Behind the Man, a demon looking to use the bloodshed of war and Nobunaga's cruelty to power the demons themselves, and Nobunaga is just his patsy.

In Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma, Nobunaga doesn't directly appear, but the story takes place at the height of his conquests, and he influences the story since the main character is a ninja serving the Takeda clan when it opposes Nobunaga, and because the brutality of Nobunaga's conquests is giving power to the Yoma demons. At one point the main character thinks about Nobunaga's brutality and wonders if he is a demon. While he's doing this, Nobunaga and his army are seen in a montage, and all of them have glowingred eyes.

In Ghost Sweeper Mikami, the vampire lord Nosferatu is actually Oda Nobunaga. Or if Father Karasu's theory is correct, Nosferatu murdered a young Nobunaga and stole his identity. Either way, Akechi Mitsuhide eventually discovered his master's demonic nature and that was the reason for his betrayal at Honno-ji.

In the second Peacock King OVA, Castle of Illusion, a resurrected Nobunaga rebuilds Azuchi Castle as a fortress of evil and commands an unholy army of Cherubim.

In Kamen Rider OOO's movie, the Kougami Foundation created a Homunculus copy of Nobunaga; since he was made from the same materials as the villainous Greeed, he ends up becoming a similar creature. However, this is revealed to be involuntary, instead acting as a Super-Powered Evil Side who comes forth to seek revenge on the descendants of those who killed the original Nobunaga.

The Call of Cthulhu supplement Secrets of Japan reveals that Nobunaga is but one of Nyarlathotep's thousand masks, and that the Outer God still occasionally pulls him out for, of all things, business meetings.

In Persona 2 there are monsters/Persona based on Nobunaga called "Demon King", in Japanese, it's called "Dairoku Tenmaoh". Later, in Persona 4, Kanji Tatsumi's evolved Persona is a shortened version of these demon/Persona: "Rokuten Maoh".

And the third game (and The Movie of the anime) does even better when Nobunaga returns from Hell, having apparently taken over the sixth underworld and turned his epithet into a literal description. As a playable character, his story pretty much involves killing everyone else in Japan before returning to hell.

A Japanese-exclusive game for the PC-98, Zan: Yaksa Enbukyoku (A crossover between Yaksa and Zan, two of the earlier Wolf Team's games for Japanese computers) has an interesting twist on this trope: Not only the main characters have to fight against a demonic Nobunaga, they also have to fight against infernal versions of both Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi as well. In this case this is semi-justified because the heroes are christians, but it might not make any sense because Nobunaga is actually a fan of foreign stuffs like Christianity. On the other hand, the MegaDrive version of the same game removes Ieyasu and Hideyoshi from the evil trio, leaving only Nobunaga leading an army of demons in their place, not to mention it also removes any reference about Christianity in the game.

Downplayed with Nobunaga in Samurai Warriors. He plays the Evil Overlord angle to the hilt and wields a blade shrouded in darkness, but he's big on Pragmatic Villainy, and is really no more exaggerated than any of the other playable characters in the series. The only time he's closest to this trope is in the first installment where he's decidedly more brutal and embracing his 'Demon King' persona, and the installment where his struggles against the Ikko-Ikki sect got a big highlight. Koei rarely touched on that afterwards.

Outright subverted in the Warriors Orochi series, where he's consistently on the side of the heroes fighting against Orochi.

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